Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to a vehicular electric compressor, in particular, a vehicular electric compressor in which a driving circuit for driving an electric motor is incorporated.
Description of the Background Art
In recent years, as a compressor provided in a vehicle such as a hybrid vehicle, an electric vehicle, a fuel cell vehicle or the like, there has been developed an electric compressor in which a driving circuit for driving an electric motor is incorporated for size reduction. In such an electric compressor, an inverter unit is attached to a housing including an electric motor and a compressor mechanism.
When a vehicle such as an automobile collides with an obstacle or the like and large force is applied to the electric compressor, a driving circuit for driving the electric motor accommodated in the inverter unit may be damaged to result in electrical leakage from a capacitor having a relatively large amount of electric charges stored therein, so that a technique of preventing the leakage of current is disclosed.
For example, Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2010-148296 discloses an electric compressor in which a compressor mechanism and a motor for driving the compressor mechanism are accommodated in a housing and an inverter for controlling driving of the motor is provided in a portion of the housing. Regarding the electric compressor, it has been contemplated that the inverter is constructed of at least one capacitor and other electrical components mounted on a substrate and is accommodated in an inverter case fixed to the housing and an electrically discharging member is disposed to face the capacitor with a space interposed therebetween.
However, when a vehicle collides with an obstacle or the like, there are many forms of collisions and it is difficult to predict direction and angle of an impact applied to the electric compressor. According to the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2010-148296, the electrically discharging member may not come into the capacitor properly depending on forms of collision, with the result that there occurs problems such that the electric charges of the capacitor are not discharged or it takes a long time until discharging of the electric charges completes, and the like.